Did David ditch his Treo?

08-25-2008, 07:58 PM

Hi everyone--

I have been a longtime practitioner of doing GTD on the Palm. Since it is time to get a new phone, I decided that I would get a Palm OS smartphone with e-mail capability enbled. The problem is that Palm only appears to offer three Palm OS smartphones, and my carrier of choice (AT&T) only carries one-- the Centro (which I hate because of the small size). If I want to stay with AT&T and go Palm (non-Centro!) my only option is to buy an "unlocked" Palm Treo 680. I'm mulling that option at the moment, but considering other solutions.

Today, while I was talking to DAC ustomer service, I mentioned that the last time I heard, David was using a Treo 700p. I was astounded to hear this person tell me that they believe David has switched over to the Blackberry. Wow! that's a paradigm shift...I'd love to hear David discuss how he is implementing GTD in Blackberry if this is true.

I'm currently considering Blackberry, the iPhone (with OmniFocus), and the Palm.

Just to make things more complicated, I am also mulling a potential move from a Windows environment on my laptop to the Mac OS.

Although I realize that I must make the final decision, I'd love to hear input from the forum on the relative pluses and minuses of the various tools.

Comment

Last week David had a "Day in the Life" Connect teleseminar with Kelly Forrister, where they discussed their workflow and gear. I mentioned his Treo 755p, adding that most of the time, he refers to his lists on his laptop using Lotus Notes. He was using the Palm Desktop for his personal system and Notes for groupware entries, but apparently Eric Mack has added some functionality to Notes that has David using Notes for his PIM exclusively now, IIRC.

He also mentioned that he doesn't do email on a mobile device, since he found himself receiving messages with links and attachments that would be best viewed on a monitor. He would rather batch process his inbox than open an email on a mobile, then look at the attachment later.

Comment

If not required by your company, it is actually a joy not to be forced to receive a hailstorm of incoming e-mails to your handheld.

Perhaps a luxury, but I prefer to handle e-mail with a Lenovo X300 with Verizion Wireless EDVO-RevA broadband, rather than using my Treo 755p for e-mail. I may change phones sometime in the future, but will likely not change my opinion about the best way to handle e-mail.

I just bought my son a Verizon Wireless LG Dare, which is an interesting 3G touch-phone alternative to an iPhone 3G, for those who prefer Verizon Wireless to AT&T.

Comment

Just to make things more complicated, I am also mulling a potential move from a Windows environment on my laptop to the Mac OS.

I use the 755p and sync both to my work desktop (Windows) and home MacBook. I use Missing Sync for the Mac OS.

I used Palm OS for over 10 years now. I looked at WM devices and iPhone every now and then but never was able to talk myself into switching. The thought of re-configuring a system is daunting. May be different if I am not happy with my Palm system. The current system fits my needs better than the other options so I did not see the need to change.

If you're happy with your system and you want to stay with AT&T, Treo 680 sounds like a good idea.

Comment

I went ahead and picked up an unlocked Palm Treo 680. Perhaps eventually I'll transition to something else, but for now it made sense:

- My GTD setup is already set up in the Palm OS (no stress changing to a new OS)
- I am uncertain whether I'll be moving to the Mac OS from Windows (the Palm can be synched to either platform)
- Being unlocked, I can simply lift my SIM card out of my existing phone and move it over to the new one (I'm currently with AT&T and I like them).

We'll see what capabilities emerge over the next few years, but I'm glad I'm staying with Palm for now.